There are at present two methods for upgrading software of data processing devices (like computers, intelligent mobile phones and so on), one is an upgrading method based on installation package, the other is an upgrading method based on cab upgrading package.
The upgrading method based on installation package is very simple. It is necessary to download a latest installation package from a server, and run the installation package after the installation package is downloaded. The installation package will achieve the uninstallation of the old version and the installation of the new version.
Disadvantage of the upgrading method based on installation package is as follows. Bandwidth is greatly wasted. A user has to download an installation package as big as several Mega (M) bytes or even hundreds of M bytes even if a small change is made on the function, and most unchanged files will be downloaded and replaced together, thus bandwidth is greatly wasted.
The upgrading method based on cab upgrading package is more targeted. The cab upgrading package is a kind of Microsoft WINDOWS operating system package, which includes upgrading files. For the manner, difference files between software version x and version y are packaged in accordance with standard format (cab format) of the operating system to get a cab upgrading package. The upgrading program starts the cab upgrading package after the cab upgrading package is downloaded to local device of the user, and the cab upgrading package will finish the upgrade and operation of specified files according to internal upgrading logic and files, thus software version upgrading is implemented.
The upgrading manner based on cab upgrading package, however, has the following disadvantage. More and more software versions will lead to increasing workload of making cab upgrading packages. For example, if a current version of a product is m, while the minimum version supported in the operation environment is n, it means that there are m-n different versions are used by the user in current operation environment at the same time, so adopting the upgrading manner means that it is needed to make a cab upgrading package for each of the m-n different versions respectively, and that upgrading of every time is in the mode. Thus it is a huge amount of workload to make multiple versions of cab upgrading package, and software upgrading maintenance cost is greatly increased accordingly.